Tea Basket, a dapple-gray Thoroughbred mare, prances around the paddock next to her handler, a woman in a green raincoat. When she is older, Tea Basket will turn white. Anxious and alert, Tea Basket tosses her head. The woman in the raincoat jerks Tea Basket’s lead rope, which is attached to a silver chain that runs underneath her top lip and clips onto a buckle close to her ear. Tea Basket tosses her head again.

“Quittit,” she growls at Tea Basket, “or I’ll hitcha in the face.”

It is the day of the Portland Meadows Mile, where the winner takes home $25,000 and a monogrammed horse blanket. Portland Meadows, Oregon’s racing home, is far from the green grass and white rail fences of more prestigious racing venues. Horse racing happens only in the fall and winter, and soupy Oregon mud permeates each race day. In the summer, the best Portland Meadows horses run in Seattle; the horses less likely to win run at smaller tracks throughout Oregon. The future of all these racehorses becomes uncertain as they age and retire from racing.

Tea Basket is not running in the Portland Meadows Mile, she is entered in a $2,500 claimer, where a horse may be purchased for the claiming price prior to the race. This practice keeps the competition even; horses of the same class compete only with each other. From her history in the Daily Racing Form, I see dismal descriptions of past races: Turned, no menace. Rushed up, faltered. She’s raced only ten times, winning in April 2006 and coming in second in August 2006. Tea Basket is eight—ancient in racehorse years. She’s running in a race for mares who have not won more than three races. The odds for Tea Basket make her the fourth favorite choice for this race, out of nine horses. Besides worrying about the dangers of galloping in mud, I worry about Tea Basket and her future.

For every potential Seabiscuit there are thousands of Tea Baskets, horses that rarely finish in the money. Many horses, past their racing prime, will get shuffled off to new owners, stables, and careers and, eventually, wind up in America’s horse slaughter pipeline. In 2006, 104,896 horses were slaughtered in the United States. Horses from around the country are shipped from auctions to feedlots to slaughterhouses, processed into steaks destined for markets in Europe or Japan.

The ride to the slaughterhouse is long and brutal. Horses are crammed into trailers intended for cattle. Since their necks are longer, horses must stand uncomfortably for the duration of their ride—up to twenty-eight hours without rest, food, or water—a practice deemed humane by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

American horse meat is marketed overseas as wild and fresh. In the wake of mad cow disease, horse meat is thought to be safer than beef, as well as leaner. In reality, the horses slaughtered for meat are domesticated livestock that receive dewormers and antifungal treatments on a regular basis. These medications are all stamped with a warning: Do not use on horses intended for human consumption.

Solomon Benarroch is one of three track veterinarians at Portland Meadows. With a soft Canadian lilt, he lists three drugs that are allowed in a racehorse’s daily regimen. Banamine, for stomach discomfort; Lasix, for lowering blood pressure and preventing bleeding in the lungs; and phenyl-butazone, an anti-inflammatory. Benarroch explains that these medications are not given to mask or treat any visible pain but are given far in advance to prevent conditions that would affect the horse’s performance.

“Any animal that trains will have mild aches and pains associated with being a professional athlete, and so it would be inhumane to prohibit anti-inflammatory medications,” he says.

Benarroch details how the Lasix helps the horses’ hearts regulate blood flow. High blood pressure during the extreme stress of a race can cause blood to seep into the lungs. So gamblers won’t be distressed by seeing horses bleeding through the nostrils, vets always administer Lasix prior to a race.

“We get blamed because of the perceived animal cruelty by some people,” drawls Ben Root, a young Northwestern trainer. “I can promise you that I have horses in the barn that do a whole heckuva lot better in their stall, training four or five times a week, than they do in a pasture with other horses. They love being here. In our barn, they have to perform and they have to win some money to stick around. The ones that don’t, we’re not going to make them. There’s not a lot you can do to make them. They’re bred to run, they’re trained to run, and most of them like it a lot. They pace the fences when they’re not here.”

Abell rings, and nine jockeys enter the paddock where the Thoroughbreds are waiting, saddled. Tea Basket’s bright green saddle pad contrasts nicely with her dappled coat. The jockeys are hoisted atop their mounts, and they parade to the track. No one seems distracted by the piercing, sideways rain.

“We’re wet and cold constantly, so we’re always trying to decide when [the horses] are healthy and when they’re not,” says Root. The wet sand surface of Portland Meadows’ track is much better in the winter than in the summer, according to Root. During hotter months, it is the consistency of hard, packed clay and is stressful on ligaments and joints. In the winter, it is comparable to running on beach sand.

“As far as I know,” Root says, “my horses’ injury rate is far less in the winter.”

A bell rings, and the announcer’s cry of “and they’re off!” is barely audible over the wind and feedback on his microphone. Tea Basket’s final odds: ten to one. The approaching hoofbeats grow louder, and even from half a track away, I see mud splattering through the air. The small crowd presses the fence, but avoids a lake-sized puddle that borders the winner’s circle. The horses are in a tight bunch, and I can’t find Tea Basket in the muddy whirlwind. As the race closes in to the finish line, I see that my favorite is not in the top three. Tea Basket finishes second to last and I have just lost two dollars.

Because horse racing is so visible and features horses between the ages of two and seven, the industry has been blamed for the surplus of horses in their prime that find their way to the slaughterhouse. Many horses are bred for the track but few produce revenue for their breeders and trainers. Even some champions have bitter fates. The Daily Racing Form, when doing a “where are they now?” of racehorses, discovered that Ferdinand, the 1986 Kentucky Derby winner and 1987 Horse of the Year, met his untimely end in a slaughterhouse, as did Exceller, another champion who won more than $3 million for his owners.

Like Dr. Benarroch, the American Veterinary Medical Association supports slaughter as a form of humane euthanasia. “It’s not illegal to eat horses. Personally, would I eat horse? No. Have I eaten horse? No,” says Benarroch. “Some of the animals, if they do race, if they do have an injury that is career ending and not life threatening—why euthanize the animal? It can go to some other use.”

Once purchased at auction by a “kill buyer,” horses go to a feedlot. Horses of all ages, genders, and sizes mix together and fight over food and space until their final ride. Upon arrival at the crowded slaughterhouse, they will be shocked with electric prods at every refusal as they walk up a cement ramp into the building. One by one, the horses are shot in the head with a four-inch nail from a captive bolt gun—the weapon made famous in No Country for Old Men. Workers often miss and fire a number of times to render the horses unconscious. Then they can be chained by their legs and hoisted up to have their throats slit. Most Americans know nothing about this process and still use euphemistic terms like “glue factory” and “turned into dog food” to refer to the disposal of horses.

In 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to ban horse slaughter for human consumption. In January 2007, the two slaughterhouses in Texas were closed indefinitely because a 1949 Texas law prohibiting the sale of horse meat was reinstated. The last remaining American slaughterhouse, Cavel in Illinois, stopped processing horses in May 2007, after the state voted to ban horse slaughter operations. American Airlines and Delta refused to fly horse meat to Europe, further hindering the industry. Currently, slaughter-bound horses are shipped to Canada and Mexico, but advocates are pushing for a bill that will close the borders for doomed horses.

But what will happen to 100,000 horses slaughtered each year if there is no slaughter option for horse owners? Benarroch worries that financially struggling owners will take drastic measures to rid themselves of their equine burdens. Horses will be abandoned to starve in pastures. Horses will be shot. Horses will be turned out into the high desert grasslands of Eastern Oregon to fend for themselves.

“People need options,” says Benarroch. “The ban on slaughter is a huge mistake.” Many disagree, saying that abuse and neglect will not increase; horses can and will be rehabilitated and retrained. Like shelters for dogs and cats, a growing number of rescue operations and sanctuaries are now caring for unwanted horses.

Root trains sixty horses a season. A Portland Meadows win brings him around $4,000; Seattle, $10,000. He sells any horses below Portland Meadows quality. Root explains that his retired racehorses sell off the track for around $4,000, but one just resold for $25,000. The higher prices keep the meat buyers away, he implies, preferring not to give his opinion on slaughter practices.

“Once a horse leaves your possession, you can’t follow it around forever,” says Root, “but we do our best to sell to reputable people. I have no problem giving them away if they have a shot at a good life. The ones we’re most proud to sell are the good-looking slow ones. They’ll have the best chance having a good life.”

But well-bred Thoroughbreds line the stalls at the monthly Woodburn Auction. On the third Friday of each month, surplus horses in Oregon are run through the ring for tragically low prices—former athletes and pets sold for $50 or $100 to the kill buyers who frequent the sale.

On Father’s Day weekend, horse racing comes to southern Oregon. Grants Pass Downs occurs on a small track that’s a dirt-bike course the rest of the year. During the third race of the day, a tall chestnut Thoroughbred stumbles and is carried away by the horse ambulance: a dusty Ford truck and trailer painted red and white.

I look through my program to the next race and see Tea Basket’s name. She hasn’t won since I saw her in Portland, but I still bet five dollars for her to win. She stands calmly in the saddling paddock while a groom tightens the girth of the small racing saddle. At nine years old, Tea Basket is the oldest horse in this race by far. Her dark coat is flecked with white.

As the jockeys are hoisted onto their horses and parade away, I find a spot at the finish line; my fingers braid the chain-link fence. The bell rings, and the horses are off in a blur of dust and snapping whips. Tea Basket trails the field. Her final odds: six to one.

The horses heave their delicate bodies with all the speed they can muster as they sprint to the finish. The crowd is on its feet, cheering. Like all great races, one horse surges through the pack in the final seconds. She changes leads and overtakes the rest of the field, lengths ahead of the competition. It’s Tea Basket, and I have just won twenty dollars.

Rebecca Owen grew up in southern Oregon. She now lives in Portland, but will attend Minnesota State University’s M.F.A. program in creative writing starting this fall. She attended Portland State University for writing and Russian language classes, played the cello in the Oregon Sinfonietta, and volunteered at HyTyme Equine Rescue. This essay is the winner of the student category of the 2008 Oregon Quarterly Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest. For information on the essay contest, go to OregonQuarterly.com.